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Galerie E.G.P @ London Art Fair Art Projects 2014

Monday 13.01.2014

After loading up at the gallery what we will need for the week, we are going to the London Art Fair grounds for the first of many times. Here we are among vans of all shapes and sizes unloading artworks, tables and chairs.

Galerie E.G.P is among the galleries that have been selected to participate to the London Art Fair within the Art Projects section. The section has been curated by Adam Carr and Pryle Behrman.

The galleries all present contemporary and emerging talents. Amongst them where Limoncello and Seventeen that we had just visited at Frieze or Un-Spaced that will soon be exhibiting along with us at Art Paris.

Having found our stand (P15) we are ready to set it up.

It will feature two of our represented artists: Oliver Bragg and Nicholas Portalupi. Bragg is based in London and Portalupi has come in from San Francisco for the occasion. Each of them is presenting a series of new works that they help us installing.

Oliver Bragg

Nicholas Portalupi

We do finish at a decent hour looking forward to the next day.

Tuesday 14.01.2014

We are ready.

Today the fair opens its doors to the press and the VIPs. The number of visitors grow exponentially as the day goes by.

An event is planned on our stand at 7pm: we will present the artworks and the artists to a group of Outset patrons. Outset is an Art Fund that raises funds to support a number of amazing projects ranging from residency programmes, catalogues publishing to exhibitions at the Venice Biennale and acquisition for the Tate collections thought the Outset Frieze Tate fund (OFT). The team, led by Candida Gertler, the founder, organises a plethora of events throughout the year for the Patrons (private collections visits, curator-led tours of museums exhibitions among other things). This evening the group is with us for a while.

The preview is the time for sales. And with wonderful works at affordable prices we are not waiting long for the first ones.

We were delighted with the warm welcome that our exhibition had and by the great interest that was shown into the works by an impressive number of people.

From Wednesday 15.01.2014 to Saturday 18.01.2014

Prior to the official opening of the London Art Fair to the public, a private tour of the Art Projects section was organised.

At 11am the fair opened its doors and the affluence of people did not stop for a few days with the greatest number being during the evenings and all day during the week end. It was a pleasant surprise – fairs tend to be slower on weekdays following the private view and to ‘re-start’ over the week end. Breaks were few enough to be noticed.

I eventually sneaked out to watch Pryle Berhman’s film programme.

Outside of the fair hours drinks were organised with collectors and friends. And yes…this is a Diet Coke!

We were sorry not to have Alex O’Brien amongst us who had broken her wrist earlier that week. As I was about to cross the finish line I heard one of the organiser “30 seconds to be under the hour!” So I gave it a nice last push and did it! Everybody made impressive times.

Lydie

Boris

Reine

Prior to going back to the fair, we had a celebratory brunch at the Arts Club with supporters who came to cheer for us in this cold morning. Back to the fair with aching muscles we welcome the last visitors of the 2014 edition.

For those of you who could not make it here is Galerie E.G.P’s stand P15.

Monday 20.01.2014

7:00 am: back at the fair grounds to de-install. But first coffee, OJ and bread need to be sorted!

Once that’s done, I wait for the technicians. It takes them two hours to pack everything away.

There is always this weird feeling that prevails when a fair ends as it has become your home for an entire week.